The Pentagon has its eye on the leading AI company, which this week softened its ban on military use.

The Pentagon has its eye on the leading AI company, which this week softened its ban on military use.

  • funkforager@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2781·
    1 year ago

    Remember when open ai was a nonprofit first and foremost, and we were supposed to trust they would make AI for good and not evil? Feels like it was only Thanksgiving…

    • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
      126·
      1 year ago

      I mean, there was all that drama where the board formed to prevent this from happening kicked out the CEO trying to do this stuff, then the board got booted out and replaced with a new board and brought back that CEO guy. So this was pretty much going to happen.

      • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        66·
        1 year ago

        And some people pointed it out even back then. There were signs that the employees were very loyal to Altmann, but Altmann didn’t meet the security concerns of the board. So stuff like this was just a matter of time.

        • deweydecibel@lemmy.worldEnglish
          363·
          11 months ago

          People pointed this out as a point in Altmann’s favor, too. “All the employees support him and want him back, he can’t be a bad guy!”

          Well, ya know what, I’m usually the last person to ever talk shit about the workers, but in this case, I feel like this isn’t a good thing. I sincerely doubt the employees of that company that backed Altmann had taken any of the ethics of the tool they’re creating into account. They’re all career minded, they helped develop a tool that is going to make them a lot of money, and I guarantee the culture around that place is futurist as fuck. Altmann’s removal put their future at risk. Of course they wanted him back.

          And frankly I don’t think you can spend years of your life building something like ChatGBT without having drunk the Koolaid yourself.

          The truth is OpenAI, as a body, set out to make a deeply destructive tool, and the incentives are far, far too strong and numerous. Capitalism is corrosive to ethics; it has to be in enforced by a neutral regulatory body.

          • SuckMyWang@lemmy.worldEnglish
            74·
            11 months ago

            The engineers are likely seeing this from an arms race point of view. Possibly something like the development of an a-bomb where it’s a race against nations and these people at the leading edge can see things we cannot. While money and capitalistic factors are at play, foreseeing your own possible destruction or demise by not being ahead of the game compared to china may be a motivating factor too.

      • Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        381·
        1 year ago

        Effective altruism is just capitalism camoflauge, it’s also just really bad at being camoflauge

        • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
          6·
          11 months ago

          This summary article says the board stated:

          “Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” OpenAI’s post said. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

          The article also says:

          Rumors and speculation swirled on social media, with tech industry heads, reporters, and onlookers trying to make sense of the situation based on what little information was provided in the board’s announcement. Tech journalist Kara Swisher quickly reported that based on what information she had from sources, there was a “misalignment” between OpenAI’s for-profit side, represented by Altman, and the nonprofit side, which is controlled by the board.

          As far as I know the exact issue was not made public, but basically the board is there to make sure the company puts ethics over profits. Altman was hiding stuff from the board (presumably because they would consider it in conflict with their goal), and so the board fired him. But then there was an uproar from the investors, Microsoft almost ended up hiring half the company as they threatened to resign in droves, and in the end the board resigned and was replaced.

          Does that answer the question?

            • Spedwell@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              11 months ago

              I seriously doubt it had anything to do with his wedding. I don’t think the sexuality of a CEO is that big an issue in this day (see: Tim Cook).

              Especially considering how Atman’s has steered OpenAI vs. the boards’ stated mission, it seems much more likely that his temporary ousting had to do with company direction rather than his sexuality.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                11 months ago

                And when I hear about a minority being pushed out of a position with no obvious cause I wonder. Homophobia does exist, he announces his gay wedding, gets fired, and no one can come up with a clear reason why. Yeah

                • Spedwell@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  11 months ago

                  I mean, their press release said “not consistently candid”, which is about as close to calling someone a liar as corporate speak will get. Altman ended up back in the captain’s chair, and we haven’t heard anything further.

                  If the original reason for firing made Altman look bad, we would expect this silence.

                  If the original reason was a homophobic response from the board, we might expect OpenAI to come out and spin a vague statement on how the former board had a personal gripe with Altman unrelated to his performance as CEO, and that after replacing the board everything is back to the business of delivering value etc. etc.

                  I’m not saying it isn’t possible, but given all we know, I don’t think the fact that Altman is gay (now a fairly general digestible fact for public figures) is the reason he was ousted. Especially if you follow journalism about TESCREAL/Silicon Valley philosophies it is clear to see: this was the board trying to preserve the original altruistic mission of OpenAI, and the commercial branch finally shedding the dead weight.

    • NounsAndWords@lemmy.worldEnglish
      54·
      1 year ago

      I remember when they pretended to be that. The fact that the board got replaced when it tried to exert its own power proves it was a facade from the beginning. All the PR benefits of “taking safety seriously” with none of those pesky “safety vs profitability” concerns.

    • guacupado@lemmy.worldEnglish
      323·
      11 months ago

      I stopped having faith in nonprofits after seeing how much the successful ones pay their CEOs. They’re just businesses riding the low-tax train until they’re rich enough to not care anymore.

      • camelCaseGuy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        421·
        11 months ago

        I don’t understand that point of view? Why would they pay their CEOs less than any other company? If they did, then they would either not be able to hire CEOs, have the shittiest CEOs or have CEOs that wouldn’t give a crap. People don’t live on welfare, especially highly connected, highly educated people like CEOs.

        • grepe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          221·
          11 months ago

          Why do you think lower paid CEO must be shitty? There turns out to be very little link between the CEO and CEO pay and the company performance… they are only paid a lot cause they are in the position of power to directly influence their salary.

          • uranibaba@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            11 months ago

            they are only paid a lot cause they are in the position of power to directly influence their salary.

            And not because they have a much higher responsibility? As a CEO, it is your job to make sure a company makes a profit (unless you are a nonprofit, I guess you have some other goal you need to achieve). That is what you a pay a CEO to do. I assume you would pay more for someone who is able to turn a higher profit.

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      1 year ago

      Which was always a big fat lie. I mean just look at who was involved in getting OpenAI started. Mostly super rich tech people meeting privately to divide the market among themselves like colonial powers divided their territories.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        61·
        1 year ago

        “In 1882 I was in Vienna, where I met an American whom I had known in the States. He said: ‘Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others’ throats with greater facility.'”

        Hiram Maxim

        I wonder if something similar happened with openAI.

        Forgot about NFTs and marketing. Invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others’ throats more efficiently.

    • wooki@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      54·
      11 months ago

      I wouldnt be too worried they’ve just made an over glorified word predictor and blender of peoples art

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          11 months ago

          Chatgpt would be a terrible propaganda tool. Also why do you need a better one? The existing ones work pretty well. Fox/Sky News and the internet troll army out of Russia.

        • wooki@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          13·
          11 months ago

          Propaganda isn’t new. Sure it’s more widely available now but it’s not new

            • wooki@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
              1·
              11 months ago

              Again not new stop grandstanding it as a new effect. Media outlets have been doing this since the dawn of journalism. Scientific process created to combat it, political standards to help reduce it fand laws to make it financially unattractive act remains its not new.

              The only thing that is new. The financial gain from the hype of abusing the word AI and thr media not calling it out. But hey here we are back at the start. Its not new.

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
              13·
              11 months ago

              Yes because the kinds of people who would fall for a deep fake would never have fallen for propaganda before.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    113·
    11 months ago

    I can’t wait until we find out AI trained on military secrets is leaking military secrets.

    • Jknaraa@lemmy.mlEnglish
      273·
      11 months ago

      I can’t wait until people find out that you don’t even need to train it on secrets, for it to “leak” secrets.

        • Jknaraa@lemmy.mlEnglish
          7·
          11 months ago

          Language learning models are all about identifying patterns in how humans use words and copying them. Thing is that’s also how people tend to do things a lot of the time. If you give the LLM enough tertiary data it may be capable of ‘accidentally’ (read: randomly) outputting things you don’t want people to see.

    • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      11 months ago

      In order for this to happen, someone will have to utilize that AI to make a cheatbot for War Thunder.

    • Bezerker03@lemmy.bezzie.worldEnglish
      173·
      11 months ago

      I mean even with chatgpt enterprise you prevent that.

      It’s only the consumer versions that train on your data and submissions.

      Otherwise no legal team in the world would consider chatgpt or copilot.

      • Scribbd@feddit.nlEnglish
        4·
        11 months ago

        I will say that they still store and use your data some way. They just haven’t been caught yet.

        Anything you have to send over the internet to a server you do not control, will probably not work for a infosec minded legal team.

  • assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.worldEnglish
    842·
    1 year ago

    Capitalism gotta capital. AI has the potential to be revolutionary for humanity, but because of the way the world works it’s going to end up being a nightmare. There is no future under capitalism.

  • SGG@lemmy.worldEnglish
    775·
    1 year ago

    War, huh, yeah

    What is it good for?

    Massive quarterly profits, uhh

    War, huh, yeah

    What is it good for?

    Massive quarterly profits

    Say it again, y’all

    War, huh (good God)

    What is it good for?

    Massive quarterly profits, listen to me, oh

  • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    304·
    11 months ago

    Literally no one is reading the article.

    The terms still prohibit use to cause harm.

    The change is that a general ban on military use has been removed in favor of a generalized ban on harm.

    So for example, the Army could use it to do their accounting, but not to generate a disinformation campaign against a hostile nation.

    If anyone actually really read the article, we could have a productive conversation around whether any military usage is truly harmless, the nuances of the usefulness of a military ban in a world where so much military labor is outsourced to private corporations which could ‘launder’ terms compliance, or the general inability of terms to preemptively prevent harmful use at all.

    Instead, we have people taking the headline only and discussing AI being put in charge of nukes.

    Lemmy seems to care a lot more about debating straw men arguments about how terrible AI is than engaging with reality.

    • Snapz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      11 months ago

      The point is that it’s a purposeful slow walk, the entire “non-profit” framing and these “limitations” are a very calculated marketing play to soften the justified fears of unregulated, for-profit ( I.e. Endless growth) AI development. It will find its way to full evil with 1000 small cuts, and with folks like you arguing for them at every step along the way, “IT’S JUST A SMALL CUT!!!”

      • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        It will find its way to full evil with 1000 small cuts, and with folks like you arguing for them at every step along the way, “IT’S JUST A SMALL CUT!!!”

        While I do think AI development isn’t going to be going in the direction you think it is, if you read it carefully you’ll notice that I’m actually not saying anything about whether it’s “a small cut” or not, I’m simply laying out the key nuance of the article that no one is reading.

        My point isn’t “OpenAI changing the scope of their military ban is a good thing” it’s “people should read the fucking article before commenting if we want to have productive discussion.”

    • diffusive@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Sure, it’s less bad. It’s not good though.

      If I did accounting (or even just cooking, really) for the Mafia would be less bad than actually going with a gun to tether or kill people but it would still be bad.

      Why? Because it still helps an organisation which core mission is hurting people.

      And it’s purely out of greed because ChatGPT doesn’t desperately need this application otherwise they will go bankrupt

        • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          I guess, but I never got hooked on any of the big social media sites, and the few I did (reddit mostly) I limited myself to rather non-political subjects like jokes and specific kinds of content. I’m new to Lemmy and this is most of what I’ve been seeing, which is why I said that.

          Obviously I know that this is what all social media looks like these days. I hoped Lemmy would have at least some noticeable vocal minority of balanced people, but nah.

  • mechoman444@lemmy.worldEnglish
    241·
    11 months ago

    If you guys think that AI hasn’t already been in use in various militarys including America y’all are living in lala land.

  • Alto@kbin.social
    192·
    1 year ago

    So while this is obviously bad, did any of you actually think for a moment that this was stopping anything? If the military wants to use ChatGPT, they’re going to find a way whether or not OpenAI likes it. In their minds they may as well get paid for it.